Kasey Arnold..."No there there"

Landscapes of the Sacred 29
“Once you get there, you find there’s no there there” said Gertrude Stein of Oakland, California. What an interesting observation: a mind, body, spirit connection (or disconnection) must be evident for this to occur. Your body could be in a place, but your mind is not present. Or, since she is referring to a specific location, Oakland was not the place she expected it to be. So what exactly does this paradox mean? Is it that nothing is what it seems? Or place is a state of mind? I think Stein is referring to the blandness of Oakland. You can hype it up in your mind and then finally, once experiencing the place, it is nothing as what it seems. How you feel about the area, the spiritual connection, makes the place memorable and remarkable.